2010 Census Doesn't Care About OC White People

​The Mexican earlier riffed on the 2010 U.S. Census and African Americans in Orange County. As he mentioned, the number of white people is down here, but the number of people overall is up. The number of brown people is up countywide but down in Santa Ana (which would still have enough Latinos to declare itself a banana republic if Gustavo hadn't already done so). And though its population barely changed, Long Beach still managed to leapfrog over some of California's previous most-populous cities.

​As if lobbing a softball to its online commenters who often landed in Nick Schou's late, great Racist OC Register Reader Fustercluck of the Day, the Santa Ana daily reports this morning that, based on 2010 census figures, "Whites
have been decreasing in large numbers since 1990, while Hispanics and
Asians increased" in Orange County.

Also, "The shifting demographics have helped Anaheim pass
Santa Ana as the county's biggest city, with Irvine now a distant third."

The OC experience--whites down, Hispanics and Asians up--mirrors what is happening statewide. Rather than feeding the Register reader illegal alien bloodlust, however, the paper pins the demographics change on the national
recession. The evidence? The less-expensive Inland Empire's explosive growth over the past 10 years.

With a 6 percent population gain over the decade past--to a little more than 3 million people--Orange County
is now behind Los Angeles and San Diego counties as California's third-most populous.

Up!

​The county lost about 15 percent of its white people but gained 80 percent more Hispanics and 120 percent more Asians. It's a good thing, too, because without Asians and Hispanics filling the vacuum, Orange County would have lost federal dollars. That assumes, of course, any federal dollars are going to be left after the monster truck show currently running in D.C.

Anaheim, which lost more than 20 percent of its white population between 2000
and 2010, vaulted to the most-populous city in the county thanks to jumps in Hispanics and Asians. That knocked off Santa Ana, which lost lots of whites and 1 percent
of its Hispanics, from the top spot.

Overall, Santa Ana lost more residents than any city in California and fell out of the state's top 10--to No. 11. Likely looking more at the lost dollars than lost prestige, Mayor Miguel Pulido is crying "miscount" and vowing to challenge the census numbers, the Register reports elsewhere.

Way up!

​Irvine, which gained in whites and Hispanics and really gained in Asians, was pushed to the third most-populous city in the county.

Likewise, the Daily Pilot reports that while white populations declined in Costa Mesa and Newport Beach, the numbers of Asians and Hispanics jumped in those two cities. Costa Mesa's overall population grew slightly, but Newport Beach's spiked more than 20 percent thanks to the addition of two communities since 2000: Newport Coast, which was created out of sage scrub, and Santa Ana Heights, which was annexed.

Casting Long Beach as Los Angeles County's bastard child, LA Observed observes the census shows it's now: California's seventh most-populous city (essentially the same size as No. 6 Sacramento) despite experiencing only 1 percent total growth; more populous than 41 California counties; and more peopled than Oakland and Bakersfield, as well as Miami, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Honolulu.